By Steve Goddard
Dr Pielke’s excellent post gave me an idea. NASA said :
Not all parts of the Russian Federation experienced unusual warmth on July 20–27, 2010. A large expanse of northern central Russia, for instance, exhibits below-average temperatures. Areas of atypical warmth, however, predominate in the east and west. Orange- and red-tinged areas extend from eastern Siberia toward the southwest, but the most obvious area of unusual warmth occurs north and northwest of the Caspian Sea. These warm areas in eastern and western Russia continue a pattern noticeable earlier in July, and correspond to areas of intense drought and wildfire activity.
Looking at the NASA image, it is clear that more land is below normal temperatures than is above. So I generated the map below, which flattens all areas of above and below normal temperatures.
It turns out that the map has 43% more pixels which are below normal than above normal. The map is not a perfect equal area projection, so the 43% is not a precise number. But it does give a feel for the fact that the Moscow heat wave was just weather.
According to NCEP, Moscow temperatures are about to come crashing down.
AAiM wrote:
I think people want to learn. I’m pretty sure that’s why they come to WUWT in the first place.
I know it’s tempting to think that, but in fact people only come here because they are told what they want to hear: That AGW is not a problem and that they are not responsible for anything.
It is because this is a very common human trait (the psychological defense mechanism of denial when people are confronted with uncomfortable facts) that WUWT is popular, not because the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is told here. It isn’t, unfortunately.
If you are going to use maps in this way, then you should use an equal-area projection. Otherwise, the more northern parts take on greater weight than is fair.
Too bad Steve isn’t in charge of the earth’s climate. I agree that if we could magically flatten out the temperature extremes that we would be more comfortable and there would be less concern for the future.
Günther Kirschbaum says:
I know it’s tempting to think that, but in fact people only come here because they are told what they want to hear: That AGW is not a problem and that they are not responsible for anything.
Psychologising motives like that is puerile. I could write a similar excuses for why people hang out at Real Climate (“they want to bag consumerism”, “they want to be afraid”, “they want to feel that they are in the global vanguard”) but they would not cover a tiny fraction of the real reasons.
I did not come here with the idea that Global Warming was not a problem. I came here because I was looking for some answers to questions that bothered me. At the time I arrived I was not decided.
Why are you here Günther? Do you feel smug and warm because you are intellectually our superior? 😉
BillD
In the late 1950s there was a severe drought in China. Millions of people died after the agricultural areas received no rain for over a year. Was this due to AGW?
Günther Kirschbaum says:
I know it’s tempting to think that, but in fact people only come here because they are told what they want to hear: That AGW is not a problem and that they are not responsible for anything.
This site is interesting 8 postings on August the 13th, on various subjects. On the other hand some sites have difficulty getting one or two postings together in a week.
http://www.realclimate.org/
You don’t have to have the right opinion here either.
Re: the red and blue color map. White out the 1 degree difference span and only show the significant above and below areas. This will show up the extremes better and will allow closer matching with the significant weather systems involved. I don’t care about the wriggles within the normal band, no matter which side they are on.
Or is that what you did with the map already? If so, there ain’t much inside the normal band.
M White says:
August 15, 2010 at 6:04 am
This site is interesting 8 postings on August the 13th, on various subjects. On the other hand some sites have difficulty getting one or two postings together in a week.
http://www.realclimate.org/
You don’t have to have the right opinion here either.
You should put a caveat to that, you do not have to have the right opinion to read the site you mentioned there. But you do have to post correctly with the right opionion or it gets deleted. Lets be fair now, shall we? If I posted the same thing you just did on realclimate but pointed here for instance, the post would never see the light of day.
And yes, people come here to learn. I doubt that a site indirectly owned by Al Gore can be said to be the conveyor of truth and knowledge. (Realclimate). What grades did Al Gore get in college in environmental studies? Well I guess it was about par for what he accomplished in college overall…..
If you are going to link to realclimate, you will have to look at my ugly posts in your face everytime sprouting off the truth that wouldn’t see the light of day on realclimate.
But lets not get ahead of ourselves. The reason this site is popular is because it offers not only good articles that are different then what the politically correct media offers, but because the commentary afterwards is generally spirited and well-thought out.
Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 15, 2010 at 2:28 am
AAiM wrote:
I think people want to learn. I’m pretty sure that’s why they come to WUWT in the first place.
I know it’s tempting to think that, but in fact people only come here because they are told what they want to hear: That AGW is not a problem and that they are not responsible for anything.
It is because this is a very common human trait (the psychological defense mechanism of denial when people are confronted with uncomfortable facts) that WUWT is popular, not because the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is told here. It isn’t, unfortunately.
I doubt many people here think everything we hear on this site is the entire truth, but I would hazard to guess it is much closer to the truth then anything else out there as far as climate goes. There might be other skeptic sites that might be marginally better, but they do not offer the full commentary that this site does.
And for the record, this site says nothing about AGW not being a problem. This site seems to be more concerned with showing how wrong the proponents of AGW are. Most of us skeptics do not live in denial like you think we do. We know the science, and most of us would admit if we were found to be wrong by good science. In fact, most of us believe that CO2 DOES indeed effect the climate system. The degree to which it does is what most of us argue about.
But the science has yet to prove what human’s actual effect on the climate is since climate scientists are too busy offering scare scenarios and over-exagerating press releases to manipulate the common man. This is the behavior that I for one find immoral and wrong. If you have good science that can bear scrutiy, I say bring it on.
But do not bring up how the psychological defense mechanisms of denial when people are confronted with uncomfortable facts as the reason this site is popular. That is a brain-dead attack on the site with no backing. If you could reference examples perhaps of how your hypothesis carries out, feel free. But just saying things without references does not really work here.
Most people on this site are not in denial, we are living in reality. My question is thus: are you in denial about anything?
Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 15, 2010 at 2:28 am
This site is more popular than the others because of curiosity.
The curiosity arises because the message being blared out of the Alarmist Woofers & Tweeters is in direct conflict with what people are experiencing. Such daily observations, by hundreds of millions, over the course of several years, started a murmur.
You give a half truth when you say the people come here because they are told what they want to hear.
The connotation of that half-truth is that they seek to be absolved of thier sins, and that’s the footprint of a religious dogma, not science.
What they find here is what the Alarmist Agenda conveniently leaves out: What is happening to the Earth as a whole, and not simply the parts that fit the Alarmist focus.
Why do people stay around here?
Because they are shown the pieces and parts that the Alarmists hide from them, and they can come to thier own conclusions/paint their own canvas.
I can’t remember where I read what follows (sorry), but the ‘unusual’ pockets of warm air at high latitudes and ‘unusual’ pockets of cool air at lower latitudes that we’ve experienced over the past two years or so is an expected consequence of less energetic jetstreams. This in turn is due (indirectly) to the prolonged solar minimum. Naturally this applies in both hemispheres. If this is correct – and it certainly seems plausible – wouldn’t it be great if the warmists learn some basic science and read more widely, then we can all stop wasting money on carbon trading schemes and wind turbines.
It’s also been hot here in Portugal. I love it this way! And the tourists, they also do too!!!
Ecotretas
Here Steve Goddard is missing the baseline years!
According to NASA:
“These maps show where Earth’s surface was warmer or cooler in the daytime than the average temperatures for the same week or month from 2000-2008”
This is the anomaly with respect to the 2000-2008 average, that is, the warmest 8-year period on record!
Most of the area in the maps are very close to white, that is, warm in comparison to 1950-1970 average.
from mars
This is NASA’s map, but feel free to add the claimed 0.4C warming since 1940 – if it makes you happy.
That will make a “really big difference” in those extensive areas which were 5.0C below normal.
Heat waves in Europe, the mystery unveiled (long time ago)
http://www.john-daly.com/guests/jet.htm
Why warming is falsely reported when world is cooling
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26609
Could it be that both the warmer and colder than normal areas are influenced by the same phenomena? I’m reminded of how a fireplace only warms a small part of the house but draws in cold drafts resulting in farther parts being colder. For Russia, I imagine the fires warm surrounding air, which ascends and draws the hot air off the surface. Think of a torus with the central area ascending and the outer area descending. The inner area draws warm surface air up and the outer area draws cool upper air down to the surface.
Similarly, I wonder if urban heat islands actually result in rural cooling.
It appears that the Yamal peninsula is cooler than normal. How can we hide the decline?
Pamela Gray says:
August 15, 2010 at 7:18 am
Re: the red and blue color map. White out the 1 degree difference span and only show the significant above and below areas. This will show up the extremes better and will allow closer matching with the significant weather systems involved. I don’t care about the wriggles within the normal band, no matter which side they are on.
Who in Hades are you kidding with that map Steve? I can see right away that the REAL map has a lot more concentrated red than concentrated blue. You can get away with this rabbit out of a hat trick because it is obvious that there is a lot more light blue than there is yellowish-orange.
That should be considered noise.
An extreme example of the absurdity of this scheme is to imagine the following.
1) 1/3 of the Earth 100 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Water boils in the desert 100s of millions die of heat stroke.
2) 1/3 of the Earth 1F below normal.
3) 1/3 of the Earth 10F below normal.
Congratulations. It’s 2/3 blue.
I suspect that the people who organized the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference last December might be wishing they had chosen to have that event in August 2010 at Moscow.
@R. de Haan. Thanks for those links. Here’s another one.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/coolingthermosphere.html
Maybe I’ve misread this NASA page, but it seems that they first say there’s a correlation between reduced solar activity and the observed cooling in the mesosphere, then in the latter part of the article they say that cooling in the upper atmosphere is an expected consequence of global warming in the troposphere.
Are they just pandering to the global warming lobby? It certainly makes for confusing reading, especially when they say, “As the atmosphere cools the density will decrease, which ultimately may impact satellite operations through decreased drag over time.” As I understand the physics of gases, if a gas cools its density increases not decreases. Also, if drag decreases, well, that’s a good thing because low-Earth satellites will need less fuel to keep them in orbit thus will stay up longer.
Buy, hey, I don’t have project funding to protect so who cares about the science.
Tim Clark says:
August 16, 2010 at 10:47 am
“It appears that the Yamal peninsula is cooler than normal. How can we hide the decline?”
Easy. Make the lows less extreme than the highs, like this
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010july/figure1.pdf
This is another freak event not too far away from Russia and “New Scientist” has to include a global warming slant
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19323-fatal-cloudburst-devastates-himalayan-desert-town.html
13458745423647521236854146941631426476
[ryan: what does this mean?]